"Animal books set during wartime give readers the opportunity to experience the horror, tragedy and cruelty of war through the lives of the animals unwittingly caught up in it. They give a glimpse of what it must have been like; how ordinary people and animals thrown into extraordinary situations coped. Heroes come in all shapes and sizes and some of them have two legs and some of them have four. Some even have wings! My top 10 list includes fiction and non-fiction titles but all have unforgettable animals in them."
Megan Rix's latest book, The Great Escape, is set at the start the second world war and is based on a terrible statistic. In September 1939, after the announcement that Great Britain was at war, more than 400,000 cats and dogs were put down at their owners' request in just four days. Buster, Tiger and Rose make a daring escape but face danger at every turn as the trio make their way across the country as it prepares for battle. But can they cheat death for a second time and be reunited with their evacuated owners before the bombs start to fall?
Buy The Great Escape at the Guardian bookshop
1. War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
Michael Morpurgo rightly deserves his place at the top of this list as he is undoubtedly our best-known writer of animal books set during wartime. I read War Horse for the first time in 2011 and initially thought I wouldn't be able to get past the first chapter, where Joey is treated cruelly as a frightened colt. But I did carry on, telling myself that the truth of what happens to animals is far more harrowing than anything we read, and I loved it. Morpurgo has written many stories about animals set during wartime. I'm now reading An Elephant in the Garden which is set in Dresden during the second world war and is about an elephant called Marlene who is saved from being put down at the zoo and goes on a journey with her new family. It's inspired by a lady from Belfast who really did have an elephant in her garden during the war.
2. The Crowstarver by Dick King-Smith
Another great writer of animal stories is the now sadly missed Dick King-Smith. He writes with so much love and compassion for both animals and people. In The Crowstarver he tells of life in rural England during the second world war. This story has a good sprinkling of animals, in particular droop-eared, long-tailed, ginger-furred puppy, Sis. The beautifully written, unforgettable lead character Spider is a young boy with learning difficulties who is the Crowstarver of the title. I love this book but think the title is slightly misleading as no crows are starved - they're just frightened away by a shouting boy, a living scarecrow. In fact he's a boy who is horrified when Sis kills a hare – although he doesn't realise when he's given it for supper, which leads me on to my next leporid inspired book.
3. The Rabbit Girl by Mary Arrigan
This book is set partly at the time of the second world war and partly in the present day. The Rabbit Girl begins with Tony and his love of rabbits, instilled in him by a picture on his mother's wall of rabbits in a field that she says they'll go to someday. I felt a true empathy for the horror Tony feels when he mistakenly eats rabbit stew, as I can remember as a child being served a pie by my grandparents only to be told, after it was eaten, that it was rabbit pie (a good way to turn children vegetarian!). In The Rabbit Girl present and past stories are linked by rabbits and a very famous rabbit illustrator.
4. Terrible Things by Eve Bunting
I first read Terrible Things more than 15 years ago and it has stayed with me ever since. Eve Bunting has written many award-winning picture books; but in this book she focuses on the Holocaust with an allegory set in a clearing in the woods where the woodland animals live in harmony until the terrible things begin to happen. On the dedication page she writes: "In Europe, during the second world war, many people looked the other way while terrible things happened… The Nazis killed millions of Jews and others in the Holocaust. If everyone had stood together at the first sign of evil would this have happened?... It is easier to look the other way. But if you do, terrible things can happen." Stephen Gammell's pencil-drawn illustrations starkly show the Terrible Things as clouds of smoke that come, and leave fewer animals behind each time. A powerful and unforgettable book.
5. The Cats in Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse
The Cats in Krasinski Square is a picture book, based on a true story, about how the homeless cats of Krasinski Square helped the Jewish resistance to outwit the Gestapo at the train station in Warsaw during the second world war. A young Jewish girl, who is passing as non-Jewish, and her sister try to help the ghetto Jews by bringing them food. The local stray cats are used to confuse the Nazi's dogs. The Newbery medal-winning author wrote the story in free verse and it is complemented perfectly by Wendy Watson's watercolour and ink illustrations.
6. Blitzcat by Robert Westall
The Blitzcat of the title is a female cat called Lord Gort, and she's a cat on a mission. This book is beautifully written, rich in second world war historical detail and has one unforgettable cat! Robert Westall has to have been a cat lover to have written this; told from Lord Gort's viewpoint it tells of the cat's search of her owner, Geoff, who has gone to war. Her hunt for him takes her from Dover to Norfolk, Coventry and beyond. The horror of Coventry during the Blitz is particularly vividly portrayed, as is the very real fear in flying bombers over Germany, and the terror of being shot down.
7. The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico
Written in 1941, The Snow Goose is a classic story of Dunkirk. On the desolate Essex marshes, a young girl, Fritha, comes to seek help from Philip Rhayader, a recluse who lives in an abandoned lighthouse. She carries in her arms a wounded snow goose that has been storm-tossed across the Atlantic from Canada. Years later, on the beaches of Dunkirk, the bird is seen flying with Rhayader and his boat, and brings hope to the desperate soldiers. This haunting, lyrical, strange story won the prestigious O Henry prize when it was published and has been continually in print ever since.
8. I Am the Great Horse by Katherine Roberts
This story, like War Horse, is told from the point of view of the horse. In this case it is Alexander the Great's horse - fiery, battle-scarred stallion, Bucephalas. From their initial meeting there is a close bond between horse and 12-year-old Prince Alexander. For me, one of the many joys of this book was the voice Katherine Roberts gives to Bucephalas. "Climb on my back, if you dare, and let me carry you into the battles that changed the world." Surely no reader could resist an invitation like that?
9. One Dog at a Time by Pen Farthing
The stray dogs of Helmand Province in Afghanistan are the unforgettable animal stars of Pen Farthing's memoir. There is Tali, who brings her pups through a hole in the fence and into the marine compound one by one; almost as if she knows they'll be safe there. And Nowzad, with his ears cut off, who went through so much but was still willing to trust again. These are just two of the dogs who are so clearly written I felt I knew them already. It's an exciting, funny and moving book. Once I started reading it I was hooked and am now looking forward to reading the sequel, No Place Like Home. There's a little bit of swearing in One Dog at a Time but it's used in context and I feel if most people (and certainly me) were living in those circumstances there'd be a lot more. Nowzad, AK, Jena, Tali and their pups could melt a stone's heart.
10. Wotjek / Voytek The Bear
Voytek, a Polish war hero, has had numerous books written about him from Garry Paulin's picture book Voytek the Soldier Bear, written in both Polish and English, to Aileen Orr's Wotjek the Bear. Put either Voytek or Wotjek into any search engine and you'll find pages of information about him. The story opens with a bear cub found inside a sack and adopted by the Polish army in Iran during the second world war. It's a funny, beautiful and bittersweet tale that I highly recommend in its many versions. A story of war, love and loss. Wotjek was an amazing cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking bear whose adventures finally ended when the war was over and he went to live at Edinburgh zoo. Animals, of course, are not the ones who decide to go to war, and often after the war is over their fate is horrific; as seen with the war horses of the first world war, war dogs in the Pacific that were euthanised as they were thought unsuited to return to life as pets, and Voytek who served so galliantly, brought hope wherever he went and of whom the zoo director wrote: "I never felt so sorry as I was to see an animal who had enjoyed so much freedom and fun, confined to a cage." Animals never choose to go to war but they often show us how to be true heroes.
